Help Me Setup a Media Player (Intel NUC) - Questions

[marpow]

It shouldn't have affected anything on the NAS, so your music files will be intact. The cover art should be embedded in the tags and that should all still be available too. Artist photos/info could be an issue I suppose, Im not sure how JRiver stores that.

Marpow, I assume you use your laptop to control JRiver because there is no other screen available in the system? Yes?

During my short audition with JRiver, I thought they already had a way to do that where you loaded a copy of JRiver on a laptrop but set it to access a remote library.

Thanks for all the feedback. The good news is there is a lot of football on TV which I prefer over listening to music. Which enables me to take my time and get everything done in pieces. I think out of 6000 albums I am maybe only missing 200 artwork, small price to pay, most of those are when I add to album title, 5.1, 4.0, etc.
Currently, which I am sure will take all day JRiver is analyzing audio and I am at 8000 of 17,000 files. Basically that gives me the DR values which I like to see. Yes, The NAS is and has been perfect.

Not sure about the PC program JRiver being accessed remotely, I do use the IPad remote for Jriver.

As of this writing I have not even connected to listening machine yet, I'll do that after all my albums have there artwork and and audio analyzed.

 

[HomerJAU]

Yikes, scary. So, do you know what happened to your other system?

I could easily be a Windows file system corruption. When Windows does an auto update it writes to the hard drive prior to shutdown with a message saying ‘don’t power off, preparing update’ or similar.

If you have to screen attached you won’t see the message. My dad used to fry is hard drives by always turning his PC off at the wall power socket as soon as he used the ‘shutdown’ command and never looking at the PC to ensure it had shutdown prior to power off.

 

[marpow]

Thanks everybody, 100% back in action, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 & 5.1.
I am hoping less problems this time around as I had to start from scratch and this time I already knew the little quirks to avoid.
I am very familiar with JRiver (the music player) which helps. The new NUC (small external computer) was a breeze to set up. I think it is better than the one I had?
The story: my Intel NUC fried, I have no idea why as I didn't do anything as suggested above, working Sunday night, not working Monday morning.
Thank God for the Synology NAS (external hard drive on the network).
8 days from nothing to working well. My biggest problem was, waiting for the new NUC and a monitor/keyboard/mouse combo. Only 2 days of re tagging about 200 out of 8000 albums, a chore of course, but easy.
Happy New Year.

 

[steelydave]

I wanted to continue to chronicle some of the little tweaks and fixes I've made to my system as I go, and this is the latest one.

In a nutshell, it seemed that no matter what settings I changed in sound properties or computer settings that any stereo content (no matter the source) was upmixed/unwrapped from stereo to a kind of 'horseshoe' soundfield that pushed sounds from the far left and right of the stereo image to the back speakers. I'm a simple guy - I want my chocolate milk cold, my women fast, and my stereo music only coming out of two speakers.

This was something that had been bugging me since I first set up my system a year ago, but I kind of ignored it because Kodi 17 seemed to bypass this behaviour somehow, and when I was streaming stuff (Netflix etc.) from a web browser I would just force my AVR in to stereo only mode.

However, things finally came to a head when I installed Kodi 18 and the same 'stereo upmix/unwrap' behaviour that was previously bypassed in v17 was being applied to stereo material played back in Kodi.

It turns out that this isn't a 'bug', but a 'feature' of Pulseaudio, the standard audio driver for (some? most? all?) Linux variants, and it's pretty simple to remedy. To disable it, take the following steps:

Open a terminal window, and type the following command:

sudo gedit /etc/pulse/daemon.conf

This will open the configuration file for the audio driver in a graphical text editor. Next, scroll down (in mine it was about 1/3 of the way through the file) until you find the following line:

; enable-remixing = yes

and change it to:

enable-remixing = no

And save the file - the 'save' button is at the top right of the gedit window. It's important to note here that you're not just changing 'yes' to 'no' here - you have to remove that semi-colon before the line to make the change "active"...something that took me about an hour of fiddling around to figure out.

Once you've done that, reboot your machine, and voila, no more weird 'horseshoe' upmixing. I found this especially beneficial because now if I'm listening to stereo content and I want a pseudo-surround experience I can use my AVR's functions like Dolby Pro-Logic etc.


One final note - my AVR only has 5.1 outputs, but in the Mint sound configuration panel after I selected HDMI as my output device I could select anything from 2.0 up to 7.1 channels of output. Initially, I chose 5.1 (to match my speakers) but after that I noticed when I was listening to some quad material that should've been super-discrete (ie no front/rear bleed) that the front and rear channels sounded somewhat "blended" - I changed my output channels to 7.1 after that and the problem disappeared, all the channels are 100% discrete.

I'm guessing that even though my AVR only has 5.1 speaker outputs, that it must be able to accept (and downmix) 7.1 signals via HDMI, and that's what it was reporting to the output device (ie my NUC). So my advice to anyone setting one of these up that you pick whatever the maximum number of channels available is, no matter what you think your AVR is capable of - if it doesn't work then just step down in increments until it does.

 

[marpow]

I am going to try that changing my mch player on JRiver to the 7.1 output and see how it likes it when playing 5.1 files vs 4.0 files. I have a 3.0 player also and if I remember correctly it didn't like playing the 3.0 with the 4 channel setting and preferred the 6 channel setting.

 

[DuncanS]

As I had an hour or two at today before I set off back up 'mother sitting' I thought as I'd had a successful day yesterday with the SM2 I'd wire in my NUC. Now I'm going to be pondering/frustrated for a week!

Connected up the HDMI and got nothing displayed out of the amp to the TV and no audio, but when wired via the same HDMI cable straight to the TV got sound and vision I even tried a few different Hi-spec cables in case I had a duff one, no change.

So I suspect something is not compatible between my 2013 Pioneer SC-LX86 and the 2019 Intel NUC8i7BEH, Display settings? HDMI revision incompatibility? HDCP? Any suggestions folks?
Unfortunately I won't be able to try anything until I'm back next weekend

 

[J. PUPSTER]

As I had an hour or two at today before I set off back up 'mother sitting' I thought as I'd had a successful day yesterday with the SM2 I'd wire in my NUC. Now I'm going to be pondering/frustrated for a week!

Connected up the HDMI and got nothing displayed out of the amp to the TV and no audio, but when wired via the same HDMI cable straight to the TV got sound and vision I even tried a few different Hi-spec cables in case I had a duff one, no change.

So I suspect something is not compatible between my 2013 Pioneer SC-LX86 and the 2019 Intel NUC8i7BEH, Display settings? HDMI revision incompatibility? HDCP? Any suggestions folks?
Unfortunately I won't be able to try anything until I'm back next weekend

I'd say definitely check the specs of each for HDCP.

 

[HomerJAU]

Duncan, you are running Windows, right?

What software are you using to playback?

Your avr will not have HDMI 2.0 so you’ll have to set output to max 1080p 60Hz. TVs are notoriously picky with audio formats too, especially if they’re not recent models.

 

[DuncanS]

Duncan, you are running Windows, right?

What software are you using to playback?

Your avr will not have HDMI 2.0 so you’ll have to set output to max 1080p 60Hz. TVs are notoriously picky with audio formats too, especially if they’re not recent models.

Yes Windows 10 Home 64-bit, I can see & hear everything when I connect directly to the TV, Windows start screen, payback via foobar2000. I don't even see the Windows Screen when going via the amp, I suspect that the amp & NUC HDMI talk to each other and then something happens, as I unhooked from the amp and connected to a monitor, no video being o/p from the NUC. I hope to have another go when I get back at the weekend.

 

[HomerJAU]

What resolution is your Windows set to? Maybe it’s higher than your AVR can pass. You also need to check frame rate

 

[HomerJAU]

Also check your AVRs video settings. My Denon has upscaling and video processing options. If yours is set to do so it’s possible it can’t handle the NUCs video output setting. Example NUC may be set to 1280x1024 or 24Hz etc not something ‘standard’ for the AVR when it was designed.

 

[DuncanS]

What resolution is your Windows set to? Maybe it’s higher than your AVR can pass. You also need to check frame rate

Also check your AVRs video settings. My Denon has upscaling and video processing options. If yours is set to do so it’s possible it can’t handle the NUCs video output setting. Example NUC may be set to 1280x1024 or 24Hz etc not something ‘standard’ for the AVR when it was designed.

I'll give it a go at the weekend, thanks for the idea(s)

 

[DuncanS]

I only have today to play with the NUC connected to the (early 2013) Pioneer SC-LX86, TV is a late 2018 Sony KD55AF8BU OLED. So 'some' progress!

When I get No display o/p on the TV I did see HDMI indicated on the Amp, but saw briefly the Amp o/p the input name displayed and 576p, so only the amps video is o/p.

1. I tried setting the video o/p to 1920x1080 (can't find the refresh rate setting so I'm assuming 60Hz) when connected direct to the TV which was shown OK, and moved the connection to the amp - No display o/p on TV
2. I changed the Pioneer Amp controls, so V.CONV was OFF (no video processing) - No display o/p on TV
3. I connected the NUC to the BD i/p which is does not have changeable assignments - No display o/p on TV
4. I then spotted the HDMI In on my Oppo 203 and though may as well give it a go - NUC screen displayed at 4K on TV!! Now I am puzzled!

My guess is something to do with HDCP (but I get no error message on screen - which it should do), maybe the Amp HDMI sees incompatible commands on the HDMI i2c control link. Plus, I have never managed to get the ARC (Audio Return Channel) from the TV back to the Amp to function either, yet the Amp states it can handle 'compatible' ARC through HDMI which means HDMI 1.4/1.4a/1.4b.

But I am only getting the front 2 channels out not 4.0/5.1 when I play back multi-channel via foobar2000.

Do I need to download NUC audio driver software for 4.0/5.1 o/p via HDMI? If so where do I find it?

 

[DuncanS]

I only have today to play with the NUC connected to the (early 2013) Pioneer SC-LX86, TV is a late 2018 Sony KD55AF8BU OLED. So 'some' progress!

When I get No display o/p on the TV I did see HDMI indicated on the Amp, but saw briefly the Amp o/p the input name displayed and 576p, so only the amps video is o/p.

1. I tried setting the video o/p to 1920x1080 (can't find the refresh rate setting so I'm assuming 60Hz) when connected direct to the TV which was shown OK, and moved the connection to the amp - No display o/p on TV
2. I changed the Pioneer Amp controls, so V.CONV was OFF (no video processing) - No display o/p on TV
3. I connected the NUC to the BD i/p which is does not have changeable assignments - No display o/p on TV
4. I then spotted the HDMI In on my Oppo 203 and though may as well give it a go - NUC screen displayed at 4K on TV!! Now I am puzzled!

My guess is something to do with HDCP (but I get no error message on screen - which it should do), maybe the Amp HDMI sees incompatible commands on the HDMI i2c control link. Plus, I have never managed to get the ARC (Audio Return Channel) from the TV back to the Amp to function either, yet the Amp states it can handle 'compatible' ARC through HDMI which means HDMI 1.4/1.4a/1.4b.

But I am only getting the front 2 channels out not 4.0/5.1 when I play back multi-channel via foobar2000.

Do I need to download NUC audio driver software for 4.0/5.1 o/p via HDMI? If so where do I find it?

Well I've answered ny own question on 4.0/5.1 playback, I eventually found the settings for the integral Intel Audio and selected 5.1 , now that works

So just the mystery of NUC o/p incompatibility with my Amp, but not via my Oppo!

 

[Soundfield]

Well I've answered ny own question on 4.0/5.1 playback, I eventually found the settings for the integral Intel Audio and selected 5.1 , now that works

So just the mystery of NUC o/p incompatibility with my Amp, but not via my Oppo!

I never had this sort of problem with SCART!

 

[HomerJAU]

I’m running out of suggestions...

I assume the AVR’s HDMI out is set to ‘pass-through’?

 

[HomerJAU]

My old Arcam AVR600 had HDMI handshake issues. It would only work if I turned it on after everything else and having it’s input set to the HDMI input I wanted to use, prior to powering up. I tried updating its firmware too.

I’m now using it with analog ins only and using a modern Denon to do the HDMI connections and processing.

 

[DuncanS]

I found this link NUC issues with HDMI & AV Amps

So I suspect my Oppo 203 does handle 2.x etc. and somehow translates/modifies the HDCP to be 1.4 compatible so my Pioneer Amp allows the output - this is the sort of thing that really annoys me, you spend £2k on an amp 5 years ago and a spec changes, the end result is you can't use it as you'd like to. Didn't happen with analogue!

 

[HomerJAU]

An HDMI splitter might solve the problem? You may be able to find one that will do HDCP 2.2 from NUC to TV and will work to your AVR for audio only.

 

[DuncanS]

An HDMI splitter might solve the problem? You may be able to find one that will do HDCP 2.2 from NUC to TV and will work to your AVR for audio only.

I've got one on the output from my Sky Satellite Box that splits it's output to the TV and to the Amp as I couldn't get the ARC to function with the Amp. So I'll give it a go at the weekend when I'm back.